


There's something broken about this

by onvavoir



Series: From Eden [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Feelings, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onvavoir/pseuds/onvavoir
Summary: Sam and Bucky are pissed





	

Steve stands in the living room, and the queasy guilt in his gut intensifies. The house is silent. That's unusual enough, but the doors to both Bucky's and Sam's rooms are shut. Usually at least one of them is on the sofa, watching TV or half asleep. Steve worries his lip and wanders through the house.

The kitchen is also quiet. Steve touches the coffee maker-- cold, and there are no mugs in the rack. Has anyone even been home since last night? Where else would they be? Guilt does a cold caterpillar shuffle up his spine and prickles the back of his neck. He was out of line. He realizes that now. Granted, it helped that Nakia asked him what was going on after Bucky stormed away, then gave him hell when he told her that Bucky and Sam are not, in fact, dating. Which is why he's in their house instead of cuddled up next to Nakia in her bed.

Steve gets out his phone and thinks about what he could say. Something friendly and teasing, nothing that explicitly says _where are you I'm worried_ but maybe implies it a little. He looks at his last text from Bucky, not long before dinner. Five hours ago. Sam: six. He sighs. It's not a huge span of time, but he never goes this long without hearing from either of them, even if it's something as silly as Bucky sending him an outdated cat meme.

He sits down on the sofa and fidgets with his phone while he tries to think of something to say. They both seemed pretty steamed. An apology might be a good start.

"Hey... Sam..." Steve murmurs, hoping that by the time he finishes typing those words he'll have thought of some other ones.

Nothing comes to mind. Steve runs a hand through his hair. He stares down at his phone screen. Hits the backspace button until he's erased it. Sighs. He looks around as if either of them might just happen to walk in at this particular moment. They don't.

*

For a second, Sam isn't sure whether Bucky's as pissed off as he is, whether he's more pissed off, or if he's just flat out running the fuck away. Sam has to trot to catch up with him, and damn but he _hates_ that he's doing that. He catches Bucky's sleeve, and Bucky turns on him with a look that's as close to the Winter Soldier as he's seen in a long time.

"Hey, look, I know you didn't think that was funny either--"

"Oh yeah, the robot's feeling something besides Murder, that's _hilarious_ ," Bucky spits. "Why don't we embarrass him about it in public?"

The hurt in his voice cuts more keenly than the anger. Sam gets it. Easier to be pissed off than hurt. He resists the urge to say _I'm not the one who embarrassed you_ and takes a calming breath.

"He didn't mean it that way, you know that," Sam says.

It sticks in his mouth. He's a little surprised by the force of Bucky's fury, but he doesn't blame the guy. Steve embarrassed both of them in front of someone they barely know. Sam doesn't have quite the same tolerance for embarrassment that Steve does, and Bucky _definitely_ does not. Bucky doesn't even respond. He keeps walking away like it's his mission in life to get as far from Steve as possible-- and maybe from Sam too.

Maybe all the sex Steve's having has addled his brain. Maybe he's just going through that asshole phase people sometimes go through when they start seeing someone new and think they're hot shit. If so, it's probably just as well that he stays with Nakia tonight. Sam's reasonably sure that Bucky probably won't kill him in his sleep, but he's not _100%_ sure. And Sam is definitely having his own issues with this bullshit, but he's also objectively (probably, maybe) more well-adjusted than Bucky, which is presumably why he keeps tagging along after him like a damn moron, trying to fix something he knows is beyond him.

"Hey, you okay?" Sam asks.

It's just about the stupidest question possible, second only to _are you mad?_ and Sam rolls his eyes at himself. Bucky just keeps striding, pulling further ahead.

"I need to be alone," Bucky says.

Sam slows and lets him go. He frowns. He watches Bucky stalk away, into the trees that border one end of a park.

"Yeah," Sam mutters. "Me too."

He sticks his hands in his pockets and narrows his eyes at the world. He doubts Bucky's going home, not in the mood he's in. And Steve's otherwise occupied. Sam shrugs and starts ambling towards the house. It's still light out. He can get home before dark. Assuming of course that he wants to be at home, which he's not at all sure about. He takes the slow scenic route and tries not to be disappointed when he gets to the house and finds it empty. Peace and quiet is exactly what he needs.

He sits down on the sofa and puts on a movie. Five minutes in, he loses interest and gets up, grabs his jacket and leaves the house again, headed for nowhere in particular. It's a nice evening, and taking a walk is probably a better strategy than holing up in his room anyway.

An hour later, Sam's phone buzzes. He knows before he looks that it won't be Bucky, and yet, he still manages to be disappointed.

_no ambush at the front door... should I be worried?_

Sam can't roll his eyes hard enough. He's not sure why Steve went back to the house, but he knows he's going to ignore this message, and Steve will know he's ignoring it. Let him wonder where they are. Let him sweat a little. Sam closes the message and keeps walking.

He thinks about the places Bucky likes to go-- at least, the ones he knows about. The library. That's not too far from here, and the libraries are open 24/7 in the city. Sam takes a slight detour to walk past the building, as if he might catch sight of Bucky in a window and... what? Do what exactly? Try to force him into a conversation? Drag him home? Sam doesn't like his chances in either of those scenarios. So why, he asks himself, is he now going up the library steps and into the building? He sighs and scowls. Not for Steve, that's for goddamn sure.

The library's quiet at this hour, although as far as Sam knows it could always be this quiet. He's seen Bucky reading a lot of science fiction lately, so he asks the librarian as quietly as he can where to find it. Second floor, on the right of the stairs. He wanders through that section and pretends not to be disappointed when Bucky is nowhere to be found. He takes the back stairs down and strolls through the atrium. No Bucky there either. Sam's not sure whether he's more pissed at Bucky for not being found or at himself for even looking.

He decides to go get a coffee, even though it's well into the evening and he'll be up all night if he doesn't remember to ask for decaf. There's a coffee shop that the three of them are fond of a ways away from the library. With the sun sinking, the inside of the cafe's gone from being a shady resting spot to a bright beacon, a sign of life as businesses are closing and lights are going out. Sam walks in, smiles at the barista. She's cute.

There's a bit of a line, so the girl can't ask him if he'll have his usual just yet. He chews his lip as he pretends to read the menu. Decaf? Bucky would say _death before decaf_ but Bucky also doesn't really seem to sleep. There might be a correlation there. Sam glances around. A few university students he recognizes, noses in books or in laptop screens. He shudders to think what Wakandan college must be like. Probably makes Harvard look like a preschool.

There's a couple with a baby in the corner looking far more relaxed than the parents of an infant have any right to look. An old man reading an actual newspaper. Sam scans the room and then catches himself. He sighs.

"Goddamn you, Rogers. This is your fucking fault."

The guy in line ahead of him turns just slightly, puzzled. _Fuck this_ , Sam thinks, and pushes open the door. Maybe he'll stop off at the grocery store and pick up some ice cream. Something tooth-rotting with an insane number of sugary flavors. Whatever the Wakandan equivalent of Moose Tracks is.

He doesn't realise he's bypassed the grocery store until he's approaching the back garden, and by then it seems too late to turn around. He looks up at the tree trunks and branches turning black against the sunset and decides to go for a walk. He doesn't do that often enough. He knows Bucky comes out here a lot. As a kid who grew up in Brooklyn and then spent 70 years in cryogenic stasis, truly huge trees are something of a novelty for him. At least, Sam assumes that's what it is. Maybe he just likes to be alone.

Sam hikes into the trees about half a mile, then stops to sit on a stump. It's nice and cool in the forest, practically dark. He's glad he brought his jacket. He listens to the chirrups of birds and insects for a while. Thinks about Bucky. Thinks about Steve. Thinks about Bucky again. Now that he's by himself, it's hard not to. He knows damn well that neither of them would have reacted the way they did to Nakia's question if either of them felt secure about the situation. Sam has his doubts. The sex is great, but sometimes he wonders if it's also the path of least resistance. None of that getting to know you bullshit, none of the initial posturing to pretend you're a better person than you really are. It must be easier for Bucky, too, sleeping with someone he already knows. Beats the hell out of internet dating, that's for damn sure. And goddamn if Bucky doesn't have a talented mouth. And pretty eyes, and god-fucking-dammit-- Sam kicks at a fallen branch, and misses. So much for the serenity of nature.

Something small but hard drops right on top of his head.

"Son of a bitch!"

He looks up, looks down at where the thing bounced, but he can't tell what it was. A nut or something. Do Wakandan trees have nuts? Bucky would probably fucking know. Asshole. Sam looks up again, suddenly suspicious. It's hard to see much of anything. Leaves. Birds. A flash of reflected light catches his eye, the glint of the sun on metal. He narrows his eyes.

There's no sound apart from the usual forest chorus. No cracking of twigs, but Bucky wouldn't step on a twig anyway. Dude is eerily silent when he wants to be. Sam shoves his hands in the pocket of his jacket and slouches. Debates whether to just go inside and go to bed with a book. Maybe see what's on Netflix. He's been meaning to watch The Get Down. He glances up, just in case another nut is headed his way.

"Did you know your hair's thinning in the back?"

Bucky's voice drifts down to Sam from wherever he's perched.

"What."

Bucky's rusty laugh echoes off the trees, like he's some kind of fucked up cuckoo bird. He _is_ some kind of fucked up cuckoo bird.

"Real funny," Sam mutters.

He waits for Bucky to come down. He must be feeling better; he only bothers to torment Sam when he's in a halfway decent mood. Sam looks up again, at the general area where he's fairly sure Bucky is hiding.

"You got a treehouse up there or something?"

For a second Sam catches himself hoping the answer is yes. That would be kind of awesome.

"No."

"So you're just... sitting in a tree."

 _K-I-S-S-I--_ fuck, but Sam hates Steve right now. He kinda hates Bucky too, if he's honest. There's a little tender spot on the top of his head.

"It's quiet up here," Bucky says.

"Well, then. Don't let me disturb you."

Sam stands up, rankled.

"If I didn't want anyone to find me, you wouldn't have."

Sam looks up. He still can't see anything, but judging by the sound, Bucky can't be more than twenty or thirty feet up. So where the fuck is he? And what does that mean anyway? He wanted Sam to find him?

"So what, I'm supposed to climb up into the canopy with you?"

"I could just keep throwing nuts at your head..."

"I knew that was you!"

Sam jumps up to grab a low-hanging branch and hauls himself up onto it, ignoring the way it creaks under his weight. He clambers onto a slightly sturdier branch and looks up again. He still has no fucking idea where Bucky is. And yet, he's climbing up anyway.

"Arboreal asshole," he mutters, then chuckles. "Hiding in a goddamn tree like a-- hey, you know the squirrel gimmick is taken, right?"

No answer. Sam narrows his eyes. He looks down. He's probably closer to Bucky than he is to the ground now. Fuck it. The exercise feels good. He can't remember the last time he climbed a tree. He climbs up a little further and sits in a deep V to watch the sun setting. It's pretty. It makes him feel a little better. A little calmer. Maybe Bucky's not completely off the mark, coming out here.

Sam looks around. Finally he sees the bastard, draped artfully the next tree over like some kind of goddamn forest nymph. Sam gives him the finger. He's not sure how he's supposed to get over there. Maybe he isn't. Maybe Bucky does want to be alone. But then, if he really wanted to be alone he wouldn't have started launching Wakanda nuts at Sam's skull.

He's not sure why that thought makes him feel better, and he doesn't care to contemplate it. Instead he shimmies down a heavy branch towards Bucky the fucking tree sprite. Movement is better than thinking, even if that movement is taking him progressively closer to the source of all his problems. He manages to get relatively close to Bucky's position, but a few feet down and still a tree away. How the fuck did he get up there anyway? Sam eyes him.

Bucky doesn't move for a few moments. He watches Sam, looks like he's thinking about something. Maybe the appropriate trajectory to give Sam another nut headache. Then he moves out further on the branch he's standing on, sits down. He tips back, and for a heart-stopping moment Sam's sure he's going to fall out of the tree and to his if not death then probably very painful hospital visit. Instead he hangs there by his knees, upside down, and looks down at Sam. His shirt hangs down to expose his stomach, and Sam resolutely keeps his eyes elsewhere.

"You want up?"

Bucky extends his metal hand. Sam would have to move further out on his own branch to grab it, and he's not sure he trusts the structural integrity of this tree enough to do that. But Bucky doesn't pull his arm back up. He keeps hanging there, waiting. He flexes his hand. Sam shoots him a skeptical look.

"Chickenshit."

"Are you fucking serious..." Sam mutters, but he's up and moving, edging towards Bucky's outstretched hand. "I swear to god, if you drop me and kill me I will come back to haunt your ass."

Bucky grins at him. Sam reaches the point where the branch doesn't quite seem heavy enough to hold him, and he's as close to Bucky's outstretched hand as he'd going to get. He lifts up a little and grabs, and his heart pounds a little as Bucky's metal hand grasps his. It makes him feel a little steadier.

"Can you get your foot up to that branch?" Bucky asks.

"I hope so. My arm's getting tired."

Sam swings his legs a little, gets a little extra momentum from Bucky, and manages to get a toehold at the base of a knobbly branch. He'll have to let go of Bucky's hand to reach for the branch above it. He takes a breath and shifts his weight, grabs the branch overhead and plasters himself to the bole of the tree. Bucky lifts himself up from his trapeze position and shifts down the branch he's on, reaches out to pull Sam towards him.

Bucky re-drapes himself, and Sam sits on an adjacent branch, just out of arm's reach. He doesn't want to ask _you okay?_ because it's a dumb question and doesn't really mean anything, but after a few seconds of wrestling he hasn't come up with anything better, so he says it anyway.

"You okay?"

Bucky shrugs. He looks away, frowns into the fading light.

"I was a little worried I might have to put out a bulletin," Sam says, half-heartedly. "I pictured you going all Godzilla somewhere."

Bucky rolls his eyes.

"Why would Godzilla be in Wakanda?"

Sam sighs. He's not sure if Bucky's being a pedantic pain in the ass or just a regular style pain in the ass.

"That's... really not the point I was making."

"I know, I'm just saying. He has a very specific cultural context."

"Thank you, Professor Barnes."

He'd actually forgotten until just now that Bucky went through a period where he was obsessed with monster movies. Preferably the gigantic, city-destroying kind. Maybe it's the only thing Bucky can see himself being a little afraid of. They'd been watching a documentary about _kaiju_ films once, and the show had cut to a clip of an A-bomb detonation, some stock footage of trees and houses being blown to kingdom come. Sam didn't think anything of it until Bucky's (metal) hand clutched at his arm hard enough to bruise.

_**Ow** , what?_

_The fuck is that._

_What, the nuke?_

It hadn't occurred to Sam until that moment, when Bucky's face went paper-white, that he actually didn't know. He would have expected Bucky knew all too well about the bad shit. The idea that Bucky had any innocence left to lose fucked him up a little. It fucked him up even more to realise that this was an idea he'd somehow just gotten used to. Wiping out thousands of lives in a millisecond. Scorched earth.

Bucky spent two weeks straight in his room after that. He wouldn't even talk to Steve.

Sam couldn't really blame him. Thankfully, the shock channelled itself into an obsession with Godzilla not long after that. Then it was dinosaurs in general. He has phases where he'll read dozens of books about something-- usually science or science fiction-- and if he's in the mood to talk, he'll talk about it non-stop. It's cute-- at least, it's cute when it's not about nuclear warfare, or conventional warfare, or some other depressing shit.

Sam's always been a little baffled by Steve's interest in news and history and war, given his role in it. Bucky doesn't share Steve's voracious appetite for reality, and Sam doesn't blame him. It's better, he supposes, to think about what humanity _could_ be instead of focusing on the shit they actually do to each other. Imagining possibilities instead of getting profoundly depressed about reality. He realizes with a start that it's something he really likes about Bucky, even if he does call him a nerd.

Nearby, Bucky sighs.

"I fucking hate this shit," he mutters. "I used to be a human being."

Sam frowns.

"Bucky, you're still a human being," he says. And because he doesn't like the softness of his tone, he adds, "I hate to break it to you, but none of us have any idea what the fuck we're doing. You ain't that special."

He congratulates himself on the abrupt escape from earnestness, and Bucky manages to smile. It's a crooked sick little thing that somehow makes things hurt worse. His eyes are bright. Sam has to look away from them. He can't deal with this. He's too tired to be the one who's supposedly got his shit together. He's too confused about his own feelings to help Bucky with whatever he's dealing with. He just wants... what _does_ he want?

"You are such an asshole," he says, shaking his head.

It makes him feel a tiny bit better.

"Did you climb all the way up here just to call me an asshole?"

"No," Sam says, defensive. "And I didn't come up here to be your agony aunt, either."

Bucky shrugs.

"We don't have to talk. I mean, I can just sit here and throw-- these-- at you all night, that's fine with me."

He pulls one from his pocket and tosses it, more _to_ Sam than _at_ him, and Sam catches it. He hefts it in his hand.

"Damn, these are big. No wonder I've got a goddamn dent in my head."

"Boo hoo."

Sam whips his arm around and whings the nut as fast and hard as he can, but Bucky catches it in his goddamn metal hand. He grins and neatly cracks the damn thing, lets the pieces fall. He looks the other way, towards the last slivers of sun dissolving into the deep blue of night. Sam watches him for a moment, and then he looks too. Stars are starting to stand out in the dark. The moon's half half-full or whatever the word is for it. The sky's clear. Up here there isn't so much light pollution, and suddenly Sam gets it. He realizes that Bucky comes up here a lot, and he understands why. Bucky points.

"Orion."

Bucky's a little obsessed with space. He knows the names of a lot of constellations, more than Sam ever learned in school. He might even know all of them. Maybe he finds comfort in thinking about the vastness of it and how tiny they all are in comparison.

"Taurus," Bucky says, pointing a slightly different way. "There's Perseus."

Sam opens his mouth to say _y_ _eah, nerd, you've showed them to me before_ , and it stays open as he realizes he recognized them before Bucky pointed them out. When did they ever look at the stars together? He can't remember offhand, but he looks up and recognizes Cassiopeia. The world shifts a little on its axis.

When he looks back at Bucky, there's a pattern picked out that, until now, he'd been resolutely telling himself wasn't there. Bucky glances at him, frowns, and Sam realizes he's staring. He looks down, through the webbing of tree branches to the ground below. The impulse to escape waxes again, and he realizes that he's really not sure how to get down.

A gurgling, grumbling sound comes out of nowhere, and Sam looks back at Bucky without thinking, redirects his eyes downward. Bucky shrugs.

"It's been a while since dinner."

Sam looks at his watch. Bucky's right, and Sam's stomach takes the opportunity to chime in with a growl of its own. Bucky smiles. It's not his cocky grin or the weak spasm from earlier. It's real and genuine, and it makes Sam's heart hurt. He's got to get the fuck out of here. He looks this way and that, trying to find a route down. Fuck. Descent's a lot easier when you have wings.

"Just let me carry you," Bucky says, reaching out.

"I'm a grown-ass man. I can climb."

Bucky rolls his eyes.

"I climb this tree all the time. I know the best way down. You'd probably end up falling off and breaking something like a fuckin' idiot. And _you're_ the pararescue. I don't even know CPR."

As much as Sam hates when this happens, Bucky's right. Still, he makes sure to give Bucky a glare as he moves closer to him. Bucky puts Sam's arms around his neck and then lifts him by his thighs so that he can hook his ankles together around Bucky's waist.

"Just don't choke me," Bucky says, unnecessarily, and then he starts moving down with alarming speed.

Sam's limbs clench, but Bucky's in control of the descent. They're not falling.

"What are you, part monkey?" Sam asks.

"Ook ook. Me Tarzan, you Jane."

Sam rolls his eyes.

"I'mma let that slide because I don't want you to drop me."

"Good decision."

Sam lets his cheek rest against Bucky's shoulder. He can feel the flex of Bucky's muscles underneath him, the warmth of his body through his clothes. Sam rolls his eyes upward and tries very hard not to think too much about what else is beneath the threadbare cotton of Bucky's shirt.

Bucky lets go of a branch and straight-up drops the last fifteen feet-- presumably just to fuck with Sam-- but he lands with the softness of a cat, extra buck seventy be damned. Sam releases his hold on Bucky's neck-- reluctantly. He's so _warm_. Sam thinks about what pretenses he could use to get Bucky to carry him inside. He'll never admit it, but it kind of turns him on. He can't really explain it, and he doesn't care to examine it all that closely. Then Bucky turns to look at him, and Sam has the terrible realization that it _is_ like that, that he's gone, _so_ far gone on Bucky goddamn Barnes, and he has no idea what the fuck he's going to do about it.

Sam lets his gaze drop to Bucky's mouth. That's easier to look at. The kiss is softer than it has any right to be, given how the rest of the evening's gone, and this time Sam's absolutely sure that there's been some kind of cosmic gravitational shift. He can't seem to pull away from Bucky. Their lips meet again, a little surer this time. Bucky's arm tightens around his waist to pull him in. Sam lets his hand drift up into Bucky's hair, and has it always been this soft?

Sam opens his mouth and deepens the kiss. It feels too good to go on pretending. Bucky makes a quiet sound in the back of his throat that prickles at the nape of Sam's neck. He _wants_ , and before he can stop himself he's slipping his hand into Bucky's jeans, and Sam drinks down the little moan that slips from Bucky's throat. Bucky's hand clutches at his waist, up underneath his jacket and shirt. The other hand finds its way down, unzips Sam's pants, and good god it's _warm_ , closing around Sam's dick and bringing him to hardness. It takes his breath away.

Empty stomachs be damned, Bucky strokes him slow and easy. Sam sighs into his mouth. He catches Bucky's lip between his teeth after a particularly good stroke. Bucky moans, his chin tips up, and suddenly Sam wants to be in the house, inside, more specifically in bed and naked with this man. He holds his position. Whatever this is, it's too fragile to get greedy with.

The kissing turns harder, a little more desperate, and then Sam's face presses into Bucky's shoulder as Bucky's head tips back. Sam manages to restrain himself to a quiet _ah_ he breathes out on Bucky's skin. He shudders a little as he comes, gets it god knows where, but it doesn't matter because Bucky's making this _sound_. More than a gasp but less than a whimper, broken and needful, and it pitches up as Bucky sways on his feet, into Sam, and comes all over his stomach and Sam's hand and his clothes. They lean against each other for a few seconds, just breathing.

"I just washed these pants," Sam grumbles.

"You started it."

"Shut up."

Bucky's warm hand rests on Sam's jaw, and the corner of his mouth's turned up as he leans in to kiss Sam again. His metal arm pulls Sam in close, and then a second later it heaves him up, and Bucky throws Sam over his shoulder.

"Dammit, Barnes, what gives you the right to carry me around like a sack of potatoes?"

"You mean besides the fact that I could feel your dick getting hard against my back the whole way down?"

Sam's face goes hot, and thank god he doesn't have to look at Bucky right now. He focuses instead on Bucky's ass, flexing and moving in his jeans as he starts moving towards the house.

"I got your number, sweetheart," Bucky says, and pats him on the ass.

"You think so, huh?"

"You want me to put you down, just say the word."

Sam just scowls. Bucky opens the sliding back door, and Sam prepares to be put down. Instead, Bucky just keeps walking. Sam bites his lip.

"Hey, kitchen's that way," he says, but his stomach's balled up too tight to really think about food at the moment.

Bucky carries him into his bedroom, probably because it's the closest, and sets him down on his bed with surprising gentleness. Sam's breath catches, but Bucky just puts him down and takes a step back, tosses his hair out of his eyes in a way that is frankly unnecessary. Sam leans back on his hands. He doesn't make any effort to hide the semi in his pants, rakes his eyes up and down Bucky's body. Sex is easier. That much they know how to do. Bucky crosses his arms.

"What?" Sam asks, and his brain might be short-circuiting a little.

Bucky raises his eyebrows.

"I'm waiting."

Sam tilts his head.

"For what."

"For you to confess your undying love for me. C'mon, I ain't got all night."

Sam barks out a laugh and rolls his eyes, and the corner of Bucky's mouth twitches.

"You better be willing to settle for my undying appreciation of that ass."

"That's no way to talk to the love of your life, Sam."

"Oh my god, I hate you so much."

Sam flops back on his bed. He's not sure what to make of the mixture of things rolling around in his brain and belly. It's confusing, _Bucky_ is confusing, and he's just about to give up and go get some food when Bucky climbs on top of him. They kiss, slow, and Bucky settles his weight on top of Sam, heavy and warm and half-hard. Sam slips his hands up under Bucky's shirt to touch bare skin. Bucky makes a sound that could be a hiccup or a sob or a little laugh. He breathes out on Sam's ear.

"Tell me you love me," he murmurs.

Sam sighs and rolls his eyes, even while his stomach's doing cartwheels in his chest.

"Of course I love you, you think I'd put up with your ass otherwise?"

This time the noise is obviously a laugh. Bucky kisses his jaw, his cheek, his neck. A second passes, and Sam debates whether to explicitly give him shit.

"I love you too, asshole."

Sam _hates_ the way that makes his heart beat faster, hates the way he's been tricked into this, hates _Bucky fucking Barnes_ , and most of all hates the way that he doesn't really, not even a little.

 


End file.
